Field
The disclosure is directed to a method for reducing a locally increased viscosity of ink in an ink print head of an ink printer during the printing operation. The ink print head can include at least one nozzle configured to eject at least one ink droplet.
Related Art
The function of an ink print head (in particular of a piezo-“inkjet” print head) may be negatively affected by external influences such as environment conditions (e.g., climate, a lack of print utilization etc.). In particular, a drying out or clogging of one or more nozzles of the ink print head may thereby occur due to an evaporation of water or solvents from the ink via the nozzle opening of the respective nozzle. Due to the resulting change of the viscosity of the ink in the nozzle channel of the respective nozzle, the printing capability of the ink varies, and disruptions such as nozzle failures or ink droplets with unwanted properties (in particular with regard to their velocity and/or their volume) may occur. These disruptions in particular lead to a negative effect on or degradation of the print quality, for example due to streaks or a missing print image information.
The implementation of an automatic process for detection of a clogged nozzle of an ink print head is described in, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 8,733,882.
The exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.